There has been some really interesting stuff on this thread, thanks especially to Drew Ryun for sharing the stuff about his dad.
The only thing that ticked me off enough to want to respond to was something that living in the past said. Someone disagreed with you, then told about their own experience as a 4:04 miler. You then made a personal attack on him and said something to the effect of "who cares what you ran." Let me tell you why you should care.
Someone who has run 4:04 understands the mile like you will never understand it. It's one of those things that you can only get a feel for by doing. You can feel the different strengths provided by your training when you are racing, and getting the most out of them over the entire race is something you have to do to know about.
I know that you haven't run as fast as the other poster because if you had you would have had respect for the work and ability it took to do what he did. Ever wonder why there seems to be an understanding and a mutual respect between high level runners even when they are competing against each other? It's because they have an idea of what the other guy has gone through to get there. They also know that in an awful lot of cases a 4:04 miler is a 4:00 miler in the right race on the right day.
In closing, your post demonstrated what is the most annoying aspect of letsrun.com. I'm talking about the people who are the equivalent of ESPN or the kid in school who knew every baseball stat. They find it so easy to criticize based on words in a book or a 3rd party perspective, but have little idea beyond the theoretical. The person who has such good reason to show a little respect unfortunately isn't doign so.
So I salute the guy who ran the 4:04. If we were on the line together we'd know where each other were coming from.